23 May 1997 (BFBS)

Contents

Show

Start of show: "Howdy pards, look in for another John Peel's Music On BFBS and for a change this week I think we'll start with something quiet. This is a thing called..."

JP relates tales of the Hillsborough memorial concert (at which he spoke to the crowd at Anfield and played records), and plays the FGTH version of 'Ferry Cross The Mersey' pursuant to Holly Johnson singing it there.

This is a complete recording of the show broadcast the previous day on BFBS in Germany, a partial version of which can be found at 22 May 1997 (BFBS).

(JP: "And since last week’s programme I’ve been up to Liverpool, to Anfield, for the Hillsborough justice campaign concert there. Not all of the bands exactly the kinds of things, you know, that I like and would play in these programmes, but they all turned in astonishing performances – Manic Street Preachers and Smaller and particularly, what are they called, the Beautiful South, and so on, you know, and Dodgy, a little acoustic set, which was wonderful. And it was fantastic that they all turned out for what was obviously a most important occasion, for everyone really associated with Liverpool football club, whether as a supporter or player or whatever, and for other people besides too, I don’t doubt. And one of the highlights of the entire event – I mean, the whole place was packed, and I got to be I think the first person ever to speak from a stage at Anfield for a concert, because there will probably never be another one there, so quite an auspicious thing for me anyway in my sad, miserable life. I thought, “This is quite important,” and I came on and said, “Good afternoon” – because I’m a polite sort of chap – and then I just said, thinking about Bill Shankly, I just said, “This is Anfield!” and then started the first record, which was Aretha Franklin’s version of You'll Never Walk Alone. And at the end there was a choir singing You'll Never Walk Alone and all 37-38 thousand of us were singing along with it. And at the end everybody was going, “Justice! Justice!” And as I said, a most moving occasion. And one of the highlights of it actually, later on in the evening was when Holly Johnson out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood came on and he sang this…)

(JP: 'I had to write some pieces for a well-known Sunday newspaper about, they're doing something like one of those kind of Millenium journalism things, you know, where they're doing something like "A Thousand People That Shaped Our Lives" as in the world of popular music, and I volunteered to write some of the things. I wrote Bo Diddley and the Fall (you'll not be entirely surprised to hear), and Lightnin' Hopkins, and Tangerine Dream, oddly, who are a band I think deserve at least more credit than they generally get. I mean, it's always Can that everybody cites as an influence, and yet when you listen to the records, you think, "I suspect you've heard one or two Tangerine Dream records as well down the line." And also Roy Orbison, and this encouraged me to go out and listen to loads of their records, and this is one of Roy's best and...made just a few years before he died.')

(JP: 'We don't hear many records by these people on the radio these days, and they don't seem to be making any more: they will do eventually, one hopes, but haven't made any for quite a while. The Fall.')

(JP: 'In the past I've obviously gone many times over the history of the Misunderstood in California in the mid 1960s and said how wonderful they were, particularly for the time in which they played, and here's an opportunity for me to remind you of that again. Bear in mind that this record was made early in 1966, and just consider where they might have ended up if they'd been able to continue. The lead singer Rick (Brown) got drafted, and the band didn't break up exactly. They continued but it was a different band.')